Buffy ran through the streets. She only knew Mercer from the occasional patrol. It was a quieter part of town, demonly speaking. She did not remember seeing the church until she came upon it. It was a dark, grubby looking structure, probably shut up for decades. When she came around the front of the humble looking chapel, she saw evidence of the fight. Doors ripped from hinges. Boards torn from doors. An elongated rectangle of sallow light fell across the littered front steps.
She crossed the street. Inside, shattered glass sparkled on the worn paving stones. Two oil lamps shed somber light on the altar. Buffy stepped over the splintered ply board to stand just inside the doorway. She saw the scuffly marks in the dust and knew that some of the Sisters had remained here, while the others took the fight upstairs. That was where she needed to go. To the spire. Where she had seen William.
She struck off across the church. “William?” she said. “Angel? Hello?
Nothing. No sign of anyone. Her boots echoed. She stood in the center of the empty room. She peered up into the gloom of the ceiling to find something stirring there, like a galaxy of twinkle lights. With her eyes trained on the lights, she walked to the broken altar.
“Where are you? I know you’re here,” she whispered. “Please, I need answers.”
Buffy bowed her head. She gripped the stone ledge of the altar. Only quiet met her ears.
“Please!” she called out. “I need to know.”
Still, nothing.
Buffy paced back toward the center of the temple. As she did, the glow-worm things drifted around her just as they had in her dream.
“Hello?” she said. “What is with the rappelling caterpillars?”
They fell on her bare skin. She swept them off. They tangled in her hair. She shook her head.
“Come on!” she yelled. “This falls into the column under ‘not helpful.”
The webs wound around her, hemming her in. She fought them, desperately working to untangle herself.
She stared down at her arms, at the sheathes of white silk that grew more dense no matter how she clawed to free herself.
“Freaking now,” she whispered. Her breath hitched in her throat. She raked her nails through her hair, over her face. She ran her hands down her legs. The webs were thicker now. They made wet popping sounds when she ripped through them. The caterpillars fell to the floor in thousands it seemed, wrapping their way up to ankles, to shins, to knees.
“No. Stop this!” she said.
“Buffy?”
She twisted around. Angel watched her from the doorway, a smirk twitched into one corner of his mouth.
“New dance?” he asked.
She scanned the room, dazed. “Angel. No. No dance. There were worms. Glowy ones.”
He stepped inside. “No worms, Buffy,” he said. “There’s nothing here.”
“Kinda getting that,” she said. “Look...” she began, but he stopped her.
“Buffy, they got to him. Or she did. Something happened up there. We didn’t see,” he said.
“Didn’t see? What?” Buffy asked.
“If there was an... interface, exchange... kind of thing, it’s done. Finished. We couldn’t stop it,” Angel told her.
He walked to stand before her. She looked up at him.
“It’s not like that,” she said, quietly.
“So the spell didn’t work. He’s not a magical... thing,” Angel said.
“No,” she said. She shrugged. “Maybe. We’re not sure.”
“But the spell? Willow’s disenchant?”
Buffy gave a curt shake of her head. “There were too many unanswered questions, Angel. I couldn’t just de-construct him. Not without knowing more.”
“Knowing what, Buffy?” Angel said. His brow wrinkled. “He said he had things to do when he left here. For all you know that means leading unholy assassins to your humble abode.”
“He wouldn’t.”
Angel studied her closely. He said, “Buffy, you’re taking a lot on faith here.”
“I know.”
His shoulders dropped a bit. “Look at you,” he said. “You’re all grown up. You’re ready.”
“Ready for what?” she asked. Buffy stared up at his face, but got nothing more than Angel’s trademark Mask of Impassivity.
Connor came into the doorway. “It’s starting to rain again. We should start back.”
“Yeah, all right,” Angel called over his shoulder. To Buffy he said, “You coming along?”
Buffy ventured a glance into the dusky ceiling, but found nothing but windblown cobwebs and spindrift dust.
“I’ll catch up,” she said.
She looked back to the place where Angel stood. He pulled a vanishing act. Connor waved, then followed his hasty-exit father into the drizzly night.
Buffy’s mind felt tired. It was sending up white flags behind her eyes. She walked over to the stone dais that held the altar and sat. She covered her face with her hands. She massaged her eyes and promised herself a good night’s rest and one of Willow’s lemon-peel facials once all of this had passed.
Buffy heard a far off grumble of thunder. She raised her head to find the whole temple swathed in silk. The worms pulsed intermittently as they wove through the silken barrier.
“Oh. God,” she said. “What is this?”
The webs drew in around her, filling up the air with stifling whiteness. Buffy pushed into it with both hands. The strands felt like sticky elastic, but they perfumed the air with the cloying scent of honeysuckle. Buffy tore a hole in the barrier with her fists.
It refilled in seconds. A curtain of webs draped from behind to ensnare her shoulders. She shuddered. She fought forward through a shining blizzard of webs. She plunged her hands through, pulling herself along. With every step forward, the webs closed in behind. It felt like swimming through marshmallow creme. It thickened, pressing on her lungs until every breath ached in her chest.
She stumbled blindly. It felt a lot like falling. Soon paving stones turned to boggy earth. Wan sunlight slanted through cattails and the webs evaporated like mist.
Buffy sprawled on the bank of the lake. But instead of a park with graveled walking trails, there sat a line of quaint row houses across a rutted lane. In front of the third house, two women dressed in stiff, dark taffeta dresses talked quietly together on the porch. A horse-drawn hearse, terrible in its black contrast beside the houses, waited in the avenue. In the side yard, a small boy chased a wooden ball, kicking it through the damp grass.
Buffy crossed the lane. She heard chimes singing on the wind, and the women talking in whispers. One of them held a handkerchief to her thin, chafed nose. But the boy played on, oblivious.
He kicked the ball and sent it astray. Buffy stopped it with the toe of her shoe. She bent to pick it up. The boy waited for her. She turned the ball in her hand, feeling its painted surface beneath her fingertips. This is not a dream, she thought. It feels so real...
The boy watched with expectant yet patient eyes. Buffy handed the ball to him.
“Thank you,” he said, bowing. When he smiled, she realized. She knew those eyes. She knew him.
Buffy looked on as he returned to his little boy games.
When the woman appeared beside her, it didn’t startle Buffy. It was as though she had been there all along.
The woman said, “This is the heart we gave. A heart which knows no grief. Tomorrow this boy will awaken with the understanding that his father will not come home. He will be a man – a boy no longer.”
The woman on the porch, his mother, called to him. “William. Come inside,” she said. “It’s time.”
He bounded up the steps to settle in beside his mother. He stood only as tall as her waist, and almost disappeared within the folds of her skirts as they entered the house.
Buffy turned to face the woman who spoke. She was one of the Seven. Buffy wasn’t the slightest bit surprised.
“We are the Daughters of the Nephillim,” she said. “Seven Sisters. Protectors of the Circle. I am Ea, the eldest...”
Buffy interrupted. She said, “Yeah, can we skip the lineage recital thing? I get that you’re beings of unsurpassed power, but I’m in a bit of a time crunch.”
Ea, seemingly possessed of infinite patience, said, “You have questions.”
“Really do,” Buffy said.
“Ask them,” Ea said.
Buffy drew a steadying breath. “Why? Why him? Why me? Why now?”
Ea nodded. “You stand at the fulcrum. Those close to you will tip the scales. One way, or the Other. The world will witness Destruction as it has never seen. You will have need of him, of his strength...”
“You think it’s right?” Buffy cut in. “To bring him back this way? To use him as your... tool?”
“You chose the form he would assume. We answered your cry,” Ea said.
Buffy balked. “My cry?”
Ea raised a hand. “If his presence here causes dissonance...”
“No,” Buffy said.
“He has been re-formed,” Ea continued.
“Reformed?” Buffy asked, slightly aghast.
“Remade,” Ea amended. “His soul remains.”
“Is he... human?” Buffy asked.
“He is flesh,” Ea explained. “We are Givers. We shared with him our blood, since he lacked his own. And so he carries our vitality.”
“Lacked his own,” Buffy mused. She had to smile at that.
She took a few steps forward, in the direction of the lake. A chilly current swirled around her. She hugged her arms to her chest. As she did so, the lake scene dissolved. She and Ea stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the repaired altar of the temple on Mercer Street.
Ea pulled back her cowl to reveal her smooth yet timeworn face. Her deep set eyes held a wistful melancholia, like a mother who had just revealed the truth about Santa Claus to her still hopeful child.
“We would not counterfeit the connection you share,” Ea told her.
“Connection,” Buffy repeated. She pressed her eyes tightly closed. “I kinda already knew that.”
Ea dipped her head almost reverently and began a slow fade out.
“Wait,” Buffy said.
Ea re-corporealized.
“Thanks,” Buffy said.
Ea shimmered, and then was gone.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks everyone for their continued encouragement. I'm lovin' the love. Also, wanted to say a belated thanks to my beloved beta, Mattallicarock. And, also a note of thanks to my Dad, whose interest and knowledge of the Nephillim contributed to the making of this story.